Nelson Mandela Quotes

No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.

Nelson Mandela (Long Walk to Freedom, 1995)

A good head and a good heart are always a formidable combination.

Nelson Mandela

Only free men can negotiate; prisoners cannot enter into contracts.

Nelson Mandela

And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.

Nelson Mandela

For to be free is not merely to cast off one's chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.

Nelson Mandela

There is no such thing as part freedom.

Nelson Mandela

There is no easy walk to freedom anywhere, and many of us will have to pass through the valley of the shadow of death again and again before we reach the mountaintop of our desires.

Nelson Mandela

Let there be work, bread, water and salt for all.

Nelson Mandela

I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.

Nelson Mandela

I detest racialism, because I regard it as a barbaric thing, whether it comes from a black man or a white man.

Nelson Mandela

After climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb.

Nelson Mandela

There can be no keener revelation of a society's soul than the way in which it treats its children.

Nelson Mandela

It always seems impossible until its done.

Nelson Mandela

We must use time wisely and forever realize that the time is always ripe to do right.

Nelson Mandela

Money won't create success, the freedom to make it will.

Nelson Mandela

During my lifetime I have dedicated myself to this struggle of the African people. I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to see realized. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die for.

Nelson Mandela

Extremists on all sides thrive, fed by the blood lust of centuries gone by.

Nelson Mandela

Does anybody really think that they didn't get what they had because they didn't have the talent or the strength or the endurance or the commitment?

Nelson Mandela

There is no passion to be found playing small - in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living.

Nelson Mandela

If you want to make peace with your enemy, you have to work with your enemy. Then he becomes your partner.

Nelson Mandela

If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart.

Nelson Mandela

Education is the great engine of personal development. It is through education that the daughter of a peasant can become a doctor, that a son of a mineworker can become the head of the mine, that a child of farm workers can become the president of a great nation. It is what we make out of what we have, not what we are given, that separates one person from another.

Nelson Mandela

As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

Nelson Mandela

There is nothing like returning to a place that reminds unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered.

Nelson Mandela(Long Walk to Freedom, 1995)

That was one of the things that worried me - to be raised to the position of a semi-god - because then you are no longer a human being. I wanted to be known as Mandela, a man with weaknesses, some of which are fundamental, and a man who is committed, but never the less, sometimes he fails to live up to expectations.

Nelson Mandela

Never, never and never again shall it be that this beautiful land will again experience the oppression of one by another.

Nelson Mandela

I dream of an Africa which is in peace with itself.

Nelson Mandela

I always remember the axiom: a leader...is like a shepherd. He stays behind the flock, letting the most nimble go out ahead, whereupon the others follow, not realizing that all along they are being directed from behind.

Nelson Mandela

I dream of the realization of the unity of Africa, whereby its leaders combine in their efforts to solve the problems of this continent. I dream of our vast deserts, of our forests, of all our great wildernesses.

Nelson Mandela

When the water starts boiling it is foolish to turn off the heat.

Nelson Mandela

Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.

Nelson Mandela

I greet you all in the name of peace, democracy and freedom for all! I stand here before you not as a prophet but as a humble servant of you, the people. Your tireless and heroic sacrifices have made it possible for me to be here today. I therefore place the remaining years of my life in your hands.

Nelson Mandela

In my country we go to prison first and then become President.

Nelson Mandela

I regard it as a duty which I owed, not just to my people, but also to my profession, to the practice of law, and to the justice for all mankind, to cry out against this discrimination which is essentially unjust and opposed to the whole basis of the attitude towards justice which is part of the tradition of legal training in this country. I believed that in taking up a stand against this injustice I was upholding the dignity of what should be an honorable profession.

Nelson Mandela

True reconciliation does not consist in merely forgetting the past.

Nelson Mandela

Nelson Mandela Biography

Born: July 18, 1918

Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela was South Africa's eleventh president and its first democratically elected president. He is most widely known for his anti-apartheid activism.